<?php
/**
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 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Contest',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/10/19.jpg" alt="Scaffolding around a house" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I can&apos;t for the life of me remember what my dream was about, but I remember the end.
		By this point, I&apos;d become aware I was dreaming.
		I came across a mirror and looked into it, for some reason questioning whether mirrors work correctly in dreams.
		I was a blonde!
		I pulled some of my hair to where I could see it without the mirror, and sure enough, I was actually blonde.
		It wasn&apos;t some mirror issue.
		I also had a thick moustache and the beginnings of a beard.
		For some reason, I was wearing over-the-top, obnoxious fake fur, in a bright orange tiger-like print.
		The orange was way to bright and off-hue to make anyone think it was real.
	</p>
	<p>
		I continued trying to look at the details of my face, so I could remember as much as I could to jot down in my journal when I awakened.
		My outfit dropped out of view due to the small size of the mirror, but the next time I tried to look at it, it&apos;s become a dark green shirt with one of those grid-pattern textures woven into the cloth.
		I was convinced this was a shirt I own in the real world, but I don&apos;t.
		I looked down, and was also now wearing the black pants I use as a part of my work uniform.
	</p>
	<p>
		I guess I had some stuff set down on a chair.
		Several people kept walking past, and I kept expecting them to ask me what I was doing.
		A child showed up sitting in a nearby chair, and asked whether I had a fake rat with my stuff or whether an actual rat had shown up on my chair.
		I wasn&apos;t even sure what I had, so I looked down and saw the fake rat, then I moved the chair toward the child in a sudden motions exclaiming that it was going to get them.
		It startled them as intended, but they ended up hitting me hard in the lip with their hand.
		I&apos;m not even sure how that happened, given the distance between them and I, but it hurt.
		It was probably a lapse in the physics engine of my mind or something.
	</p>
	<p>
		Soon after that, I woke up.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My academic advisor wrote back to me, telling me I have less than a week to register for courses.
		They didn&apos;t at all address the problem that I&apos;m unable to register for the courses I need.
		So I responded:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello <span style="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>,
		</p>
		<p>
			I understand that there is a limited amount of time to register for courses, but like I wrote to you yesterday, the website isn&apos;t allowing me to register for the courses I actually need for my degree.
			What do I do?
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you,<br/>
			~ Lexi
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I get where you&apos;re coming from in asking for the standard deviation, given that you have the mean, but keep in mind that that mean is either of the nation-wide schools before the experiment (less likely) or after (more likely).
			It doesn&apos;t tell us anything about the <strong>*change*</strong> in scores.
			We still don&apos;t know how schools are getting along with the new program as opposed to without it.
			For example, if the rise in scores is higher without the new program, the new program could be holding schools back.
		</p>
		<p>
			I completely agree with the rest though, especially the small sample size issue.
			With only four schools on display, we don&apos;t really get a whole lot of data.
			When sample sizes are too small, variance is too large.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="health">
	<h2>Health</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;m a bit ahead this week, so I made the time to stop by the doctors&apos; office.
		I explained the issue of a tiny shard of glass in my foot.
		I sort of expected to be written off a bit.
		I mean, it&apos;s such a minor issue.
		When I&apos;m wearing shoes, it doesn&apos;t even hurt.
		It&apos;s just when I walk around barefoot that it hurts slightly, and I always walk barefoot at home.
		That&apos;s sort of how the shard ended up in my sole to begin with.
		The receptionist actually seemed to think it was a bigger deal than I did, even though I&apos;d made sure to mention that it wasn&apos;t urgent and only hurt slightly.
		They wanted me to come in for a no-appointment visit tomorrow, but I got the impression that there&apos;s a limited number of those and that with bad luck, I might not get seen at all and have come in for nothing.
		I don&apos;t have time for that.
		So I set up a regular appointment.
	</p>
	<p>
		It seems I&apos;ll be in as quick as Wednesday at 09:00.
		Honestly, that&apos;s almost no time at all.
		Basing my estimations off my dentist&apos;s wait times, I&apos;d assumed it&apos;d be about a month before I could be seen.
		I&apos;ll have the shard out before my job hunt begins.
	</p>
	<p>
		I wish I&apos;d had time to set up the appointment sooner though.
		Once I got home from setting up the appointment, I found the shard in my foot was causing much more pain.
		It wasn&apos;t any better after work.
		That said, when I say it hurt much more, I&apos;m talking about a high multiplication of the pain, not a high addition.
		A tiny pain multiplied by a high number is still tiny.
		It&apos;s just a bit more annoying now.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="sales">
	<h2>Sales competition</h2>
	<p>
		The head manager has started a competition to see who can get the highest average sale to customers for the month.
		The prize is fifty dollars.
		There&apos;s a major flaw in the game though; it&apos;s totally rigged.
		They&apos;re counting sales for the whole month, but the competition began just now.
		No matter how hard we try now, any low sales from before will drag our numbers down, and any high sales will boost them up.
		Two thirds of the month are over, so the winner is pretty much decided already.
	</p>
	<p>
		The boss took us each aside privately to show us each our current ranking.
		I&apos;m placed at number two, just behind two other people.
		That makes me mad!
		The franchise owner was getting all over my case, telling me my average sale price is low and I need to try up-selling to each customer three times before just letting them get their food.
		I&apos;m the one with the third-highest average sale though!
		And for the record, I haven&apos;t changed a thing about how I sell.
		Pestering customers by trying thrice to get them to buy more is how you <strong>*lose*</strong> customers, and I&apos;m not about to try to drive business away.
	</p>
	<p>
		So anyway, I guess I&apos;ll try a little harder to offer customers things I think they might be interested in, but I&apos;m still not going to hammer them with up-sells.
		I have no disillusions that I&apos;ll win the reward, and I&apos;m really not very competitive.
		I&apos;d like to send the message though that yes, offering money works.
		We used to have a commission system for one of our products, and I was the top seller of that product at that time.
		I&apos;ll lose this time most likely, but I&apos;d like to avoid dropping from my number two ranking.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
